


Against Hope

by Verecunda



Category: Dickensian (TV)
Genre: Bad Decisions, F/M, Future Fic, Introspection, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 19:37:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7520524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verecunda/pseuds/Verecunda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If I was a fortune teller - But I am not a fortune-teller."</p><p>Mr. Jaggers sees a chance to save both Miss Havisham and one outcast child. He is to be disappointed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Against Hope

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: The whole story behind Estella's adoption in _Great Expectations_ is so harrowing and heartbreaking for everyone involved... so naturally I decided to double-shot the pain by exploring it in the _Dickensian_ -verse.
> 
> Disclaimer: I think between them, Dickens and Tony Jordan have this one covered, but I have shamelessly ripped some dialogue from the book. Sorry, Charlie.
> 
> Warning: touches on child welfare options in the nineteenth century, which were mostly awful, so tread carefully.

“I have something I wish to speak to you about, Mr. Jaggers.”

She was seated at her dressing-table, half-turned towards him. The candles cast an unearthly light across her face, their flickering dance lending some illusion of movement to her still figure in that frozen room. The spell of the place seemed to close in about him, too, and it was all he could do to fold his hands behind his back and draw himself up in expectation.

“Miss Havisham?”

“I have been shut up in these rooms a long time, I think.”

“Yes.”

He made no attempt to inform her how long exactly, for he knew she wouldn’t wish to hear it. As far as she was concerned, time had no meaning here. But it had been long enough. Long enough that sometimes it seemed to him that it was the ghost of Amelia Havisham who faced him in this desolate house. A facile enough thought, when she sat there all in white, her worn veil trailing about her like a mist, but it was more than that. She had faded somehow in the years since she had shut herself away, like one of her withered bridal flowers: still recognisable in form, but brittle, sharper, leached of all colour and softness.

But today, something was different. He watched her face closely, trying to fathom it out, but before he got very far in his examination, she spoke again.

“I have been so alone here.” As she said it, she seemed to transform before his eyes. A sudden sadness came over her, softening her. No longer hard and imperious, when she looked up at him, she seemed very like the woman he had known before. “I do not wish to be alone any more.”

He didn’t move. Instead he remained circumspect, waiting for her to go on, to see what had occasioned this change in her.

“I was thinking I would like to adopt a child, Mr. Jaggers.”

Whatever he might have expected, it was not that, and it took him a moment to collect himself.

“A child, Miss Havisham?”

“Yes. A little girl.” At that, she turned her head and looked into the mirror. Her reflection showed pale in the dark glass, and in it, he saw a strange, inward-looking expression pass over her face. “The world is so very cruel to girls. The thought came to me that there must be hundreds - thousands - of orphaned girls, left all alone, without someone to guide them protect them from that cruelty.”

He nodded tightly. Far too many.

“I wish to adopt one such little girl,” she went on, and more and more her voice took on its old tenderness. She turned back from the mirror and met his eyes. “I have known that cruelty; I can protect her from it. I can rear her and love her, and save her from the misery I’ve had to endure.”

He did not trust himself to speak. He had thought Amelia Havisham lost beyond recovery, but in that moment, there she was before him: earnest, vulnerable, hopeful.

His rational mind interposed, recalling his attention to where he was, to Satis House and its decayed bridal relics, to the life she had led these past years, shut away from sunlight and company, her whole mind turned inward, with nothing but her own misery to dwell upon. Was this the place to bring a child? Sometimes, with the best will in the world, a house is simply too blighted for a child to thrive in it. He had once tried to counsel Frances Barbary against taking back her sister’s child, sure that only unhappiness could come from it. Too much bitterness there, too much resentment, to leave any room for love. What, his rational mind demanded, was the difference here?

The difference was Amelia Havisham, looking at him with such earnest hopefulness. One hand lay over her heart, broken by Compeyson and Arthur all those years ago. After so long, he had believed it beyond repair, but now, hearing her words and seeing her face…

There was perhaps no one who knew better than he what a great capacity for love Amelia Havisham possessed. Whether for her father, her brother, her friends, for Compeyson, even for her pet dog, he had seen her love devotedly, generously, unconditionally. It had been that same openness of heart that had undone her, but looking at her now, the thought came to him: if she had someone to love again, might it not be the same thing to heal her at long last?

“An orphan child,” he said, his voice determinedly impassive. “A little girl?”

She nodded. “Can you find such a child for me, Jaggers?”

He considered it once more, then twice, before inclining his head. “I will look about me,” he said, “and see what I can do.”

-

It took some time before he was able to fulfil his trust. Not that there was a shortage of orphaned children in London, far from it. Every day he was obliged, in his professional life, to witness children subjected to every cruelty the world could find to throw at them. Orphaned, neglected, beaten, jailed, transported, executed, ill-used by the lawful and the lawless alike. How did he go about choosing just one child to save from that heap?

But his opportunity came in time. A woman, Molly, accused of murder, and widely suspected of having also killed her child - a girl. He took her case, and though he was certain in his mind that she had indeed killed the other woman, he was not convinced that she had killed the child. And little by little, he got the truth out of her. The child was not dead, but hidden, in order to torment the father, from whom Molly was estranged. A father unknown, a mother facing the gallows, and the fate of one innocent child hanging in the balance. Jaggers saw his chance open before him at last.

“Give the child into my hands, and I will do my best to bring you off. If you are saved, the child is saved too; if you are lost, the child is still saved.”

Molly wept and raged, tore her hair and clothes, and swore she would kill herself and the child rather than let them be parted. But her wild, unpredictable temper was all she had to sustain her, and by and by it burnt itself out and the truth became evident. She was in hardly a fit state of mind to look after herself, let alone her daughter. She had threatened to destroy the child, and there was no telling what she might do, if the wildness came on her again. She had already killed one woman.

“But where’ll she go?” she asked desolately. “What will you do with her?”

“I hold a trust for a client,” said Jaggers. He could tell her that much, at least. “A rich lady, who wishes to adopt a little girl. She will be loved, I assure you.”

Molly seemed to cave in upon herself. She rocked back and forth, her face buried in her hands as she moaned like one dying. It was a sight to wring pity from a stone, and though he might often wish otherwise, Mr. Jaggers was not stone. But feelings had no place in this office, and he must consider the facts, cold and ruthless though they were. Molly’s mind was dangerously disturbed, that was plain enough, and her daughter’s life was at risk if she remained with her. He could not stand by, not when he had been given this chance to save the child. One child, at least, out of the heap.

“Come, Molly,” he said, “you must see that it’s for the best.”

She wept and remonstrated some more, but he was the more patient, and he was a match for her. And at long last, she gave way. She had hidden the child with some people she knew, and it was arranged that when the trial was over, they would bring her to him. It was a covert, shadowy business, and it was all conducted under Tulkinghorn’s nose, but Jaggers had successfully concealed the existence of Lady Dedlock’s child from him before, and the secrets of ordinary folk like Molly were far beneath Tulkinghorn’s notice, so he was able to bring off this business without detection.

He brought off Molly’s business as well, working her trial to such general acclaim that the verdict, which had been a toss-up before, was decided very thoroughly in her favour. But though she was free to go, her ordeal had shaken her to the core, disturbing her mind even further, and he was not very surprised when she showed up at his door one night in a pitiable condition, begging him for shelter. It didn’t take much consideration for him to agree. So Mr. Jaggers acquired a housekeeper, taking the fates of both mother and daughter in hand. It was, perhaps, the least he could do.

-

She was a pretty child, Molly’s daughter, very like her, but without - as far as he could see - the same wildness that he could still see lying dormant behind her mother’s eyes. About three years old, he reckoned. Just young enough to part from her old life without pain.

A woman brought her to him at the docks, both of them dirty and footsore after their long journey from the country. The child watched him as he approached, wary but somehow unsurprised. It made him wonder: how many people had had charge of her, whilst Molly was imprisoned? No life for a child, to be handed from one stranger to the next. At least now, he could offer her something constant.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said, in what he hoped was a gentle voice. “I’m here to take you home.”

It took some cajoling, but at last she put her hand in his.

He hired a cab to take them to Satis House, the better to keep her away from the gossiping eyes of the city. Dusk was falling, and the lamplighters were at work, a steady succession of street-lamps leading the way to their destination. The child was still wary, but she was also tired, and presently the swaying of the carriage lulled her to sleep. She slumped into him, and he tucked her into a fold of his greatcoat, keeping her close in the crook of his arm. He looked down at her, so small and confiding, and thought of the desolate house to which he was taking her. Once more he wondered: was he doing right?

The thought was quickly succeeded: what else _could_ he do? Send her to her father? He had never pried very deeply into the matter of Molly’s husband. His defence had not required it; he had not needed to know. All he knew was that the father was a certain man called Abel, also in the felonious line. If the man had come forward to own Molly and their daughter… but he had not come forward. And what good would it do to seek him out, to send the child back into that world? He knew what became of the children of thieves and convicts. Send her back, and she would be become one of the heap again, one of the children who must be held up at the bar so the judge could see them to condemn them. Or she might live long enough to end up like one of those abject girls once kept by Fagin. It had been several years, but everyone remembered the hideous fate of the girl Nancy.

And if she was not to go to her father, what else was there? The workhouse? There wasn’t a workhouse in the country that wasn’t a sink of human misery, worse even than the gaols. A baby farmer? He had seen far too many of _them_ in the dock: drunken, slatternly creatures, sent to the gallows for murdering the children in their care, whether by active malice or neglect. Not to be thought of.

No. He must hold fast to his original plan. Miss Havisham might be an eccentric choice of caretaker, and Satis House might be an unlikely home for a child, but at least he could be certain she would be loved. If nothing else, it was by far the lesser evil. And maybe - just maybe - this little girl might be the thing to let the sunlight back in at last.

It was full dark by the time they arrived, and the stars shone faint and remote as he paid the driver and gently lifted the sleeping child from the carriage. He rang at the gate, still strung with its ruined garlands, and they were shown inside by the maid Mary. She led the way upstairs, candle in hand, lighting their way through the still, silent darkness. Here and there the tiny flame penetrated the darkness enough to throw some faint light on the cobwebs and dust, intimating at the greater desolation beyond, and Jaggers was glad that the child was still asleep on his shoulder, as they made their way to Miss Havisham’s room.

She was sitting in much the same attitude as he had last left her, seated before her dressing-table with her cheek resting one one hand, as if she had not moved from that place in all that time. When he entered, however, she stirred and turned to him. She saw him, then she saw the child in his arms, and her eyes went very wide in the candlelight.

“Mr. Jaggers?”

Without a word, he came forward. Miss Havisham sat up straight in her chair, and she held out her arms for the child, an eager, expectant light dawning in her face. He handed the child to her and she gathered her up, heedless of her ragged clothes, and drew her into her lap, amongst all the yellowed folds of lace and satin. The child stirred, disturbed by the movement, and her eyes blinked slowly open. They flew wide when they saw the woman who held her, and she made a small noise of surprise, but Miss Havisham shushed her gently, cradling her in her arms with infinite gentleness.

“It’s all right, my dear,” she murmured, smoothing the tangled hair and smiling into the little face. “It’s all right. You’re safe now, you’re home.”

Jaggers watched her face, and saw an expression of such fierce tenderness there, something he had never thought to see again. It was the same tenderness she had once kept for her father, and her brother, and now it was all fixed on the child. All that love, locked away within her for so long, now had a focus again.

By and by, the child seemed to settle in her arms, and at last she offered Miss Havisham a tentative smile, one curious hand coming up to play with one of the flowers in her hair. Miss Havisham smiled in return, tears springing into her eyes.

“My beautiful girl,” she said. She stroked the child’s cheek and kissed her forehead, before laying her own brow there. “My bright star. My Estella.”

There was nothing more for him to do here. He had carried out his instructions, and his part of the business was now over. Jaggers turned to the maid, and nodded to indicate that she should show him out. As he reached the door he paused, and turned back once. The last thing he saw was both Miss Havisham and the child - Estella - illuminated in a pool of candlelight, both of them absorbed in each other, before he closed the door quietly and groped his way down the dark stairs. 

Once outside, in the cold starlight, he glanced back toward the silent house. He had given Miss Havisham her child, Estella her new life. He had pinned all his hopes upon this trust, and now all there was to do was wait and see how the result fell out.


End file.
